Aldi fastest growing retailer in Scotland in 2018

The data from Kantar Worldpanel shows the supermarket also had its strongest Christmas trading ever in Scotland with sales up 11.4 percent in December.

Growth across the year was driven by strong sales of the retailer’s Scottish range, including record sales of more than 7.8 million individual potato scones which, when lined up, would stretch the whole of the North Coast 500*. Sales of Scottish milk also reached a record high with enough sold across the year to fill 11 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Aldi is now the sixth largest supermarket in Scotland with a 6.9 percent share of the Scottish grocery market.

Richard Holloway, regional managing Director for Scotland, said: “Last year was a fantastic 12 months of trading for Aldi in Scotland, which is reflected in these latest figures. We’ve continued to lead the way with local sourcing and are proud to stock more than 400 Scottish products, with ambitions to grow this to 450 products by the end of this year. We recently announced our plans to open a further eight stores across Scotland over the course of 2019, underlining our commitment to continuing this growth story here in Scotland.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Aldi opening its first store in Scotland and the 10th anniversary of the creation of its Scottish Buying Department, based at the supermarket’s regional distribution centre in Bathgate.

The new stores scheduled to open over the next 12 months will be in Kilmarnock, East Kilbride, Dalgety Bay, Dundee, Crieff, Milngavie, Cumbernauld and Leith, Edinburgh, creating an additional 200 jobs and taking the total number of staff employed by the discount retailer in Scotland to 2,300 by the end of the year.